MANILA, Philippines - A wall of mud and boulders swept down from a mountainside at terrifying speed Friday, burying an eastern Philippines farming village in up to 30 feet of sludge. Officials feared the death toll could climb past 1,500.

The landslide left Guinsaugon — once a community of 2,500 people and an elementary school — looking like a giant patch of newly plowed land. Only a few jumbles of corrugated steel sheeting indicate Guinsaugon ever existed.

Rescue workers were hampered by the thick, soft mud that remained unstable, along with flash floods spawned by two weeks of downpours that dumped 27 inches of rain. Survivors and others blamed the weather and illegal logging for contributing to the disaster.

The official death toll stood at 23 after darkness forced suspension of rescue efforts, hours after the morning landslide. But the Philippine Red Cross estimated at least 200 dead and 1,500 missing. Significantly, only 53 survivors were plucked from the brown morass on Leyte island, about 400 miles east of the capital, Manila.

Guinsaugon (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Rescue workers digging on the site of the elementary school of Guinsaugon “have no indications to believe that anyone survived the disaster”, a Filipino army official said. Lieutenant-Colonel Raul Farnacio said: “The school was buried in up to 35 metres of mud and recovery teams had dug about half-way down to the building. So far, we have not seen any sign of life.”

The school was situated in the heart of the village – in the southern part of Leyte Island in the east of the archipelago – which was struck by a terrible landslide on Friday at 10.45am (local time).

Thirty members of the US army and a team of Taiwanese volunteers are taking part in rescue operations; they are using sonar equipment to monitor the area where they believe between 250 and 300 people were buried, most of them children.

Many teams of Filipino volunteers are also at work: together with the army, they are digging to excavate at least the bodies of victims: yesterday evening, 68 corpses were extracted from the mud. But the rains – still pouring – make all operations difficult.

“It’s like working in quicksand,” said Adriano Fuego, director of the Office of Civil Defence. He gave new estimates of survivors and missing shortly afterwards, saying that according to the last local census, around 913 people were missing and not 1,408. But he admitted that “at the moment, this is only an estimate”. Now, “certain survivors” are 435, of who 20 are “seriously injured”.

yep it is.. sad to say, our housemaid's nephew studies in the elementary school that was reported to be burried.. she has not yet received updates from her relatives.. really.. my heart goes out to her..